


tales of the glories

by mletart



Category: Raven Cycle - Maggie Stiefvater
Genre: Alternate Universe - Ghost Hunters, Lockwood & Co. AU, M/M, hopefully, kind of sort of?, loosely based, sshhhhh the important thing is Ronan and Adam are in love, warnings for quick mentions of child abuse and some characters die who are dead in the Raven Cycle, you don't have to know the series I don't think
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-20
Updated: 2019-12-20
Packaged: 2021-02-26 07:15:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,240
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21869659
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mletart/pseuds/mletart
Summary: For magicienetreveur for Pynch Secret Santa 2019Lockwood & Co. style AU in which the Gangsey don't quite fight ghosts, but it's sort of like that. Adam and Ronan work together to uncover reckless convoluted shenanigans and ultimately it's a super good bonding experience ?
Relationships: Ronan Lynch/Adam Parrish
Comments: 8
Kudos: 59
Collections: Pynch Secret Santa 2019





	tales of the glories

**Author's Note:**

  * For [hollyanneg](https://archiveofourown.org/users/hollyanneg/gifts).



Adam Parrish wondered how he got himself into this situation.

'This situation' was exchanging looks with Ronan Lynch across the crowded ballroom at the Laumonier Agency's annual winter gala they held for all the agencies right before Christmas. The look he and Ronan exchanged was a marked one that meant that the drinking and mingling was well enough underway that they could get to the business end of why they were truly attending this party.

Adam never would have predicted he'd be willing to do something like this when he'd first began working at Monmouth Investigations.

He still remembered his interview as clearly as if it'd happened yesterday.

Adam had just left his position at the Mountain View Agency, a small time operation that was underequipped, understaffed, and unprepared to deal with the Problem. 

'The Problem' was mostly how people referred to it: to the things that crossed over from the Beyond. No one was quite sure what the Beyond was. It was also called the Other Side, the Veil, the Dreamscape. The latter was the most fanciful but it also probably came the closest to describing it. The things that came through from the Beyond were insubstantial, barely more than shadow and mist in the waking world, and they tended to look like human beings, and so some people thought they were ghosts or just thought it was easier to call them that. But the things weren’t spirits of humans who had passed on, some of them just happened to look human shaped. And a lot of the things didn’t remotely resemble human beings at all. The things that came through from the Beyond were more formally called specters, and there wasn't enough research yet to understand them, but what mattered was that if a specter touched you they could destroy you. Prolonged contact with specters left a person with signs of decay. Enough contact and a person's whole body rotted to black, polluted and unrecognizable. Specters could be fought back with iron and silver, and lavender and salt helped keep them at bay too; for whatever reason the specter's essences didn't react well to any of those. To truly get rid of a specter though, you had to find and burn its source. To cross from the Beyond, specters had to have a tie to something in the waking world, a connection to a physical object that allowed them to remain present outside of their own realm, and that object was known as a source. A specter was only truly gone when its source was completely reduced to ash. To help protect the public from being touched by specters, there were many agencies devoted to fighting specters and locating and burning sources.

The Laumoniers were a leading producer of iron products and their agency was one of the largest and well-known in the world. Mountain View, in comparison, had to have been one of the smallest. Their equipment was no where near up to the Department of Psychical Research and Control's standards - the governmental authority on the Problem. Worse than the subpar equipment, Mountain View didn't have enough agents to put on the amount of cases they agreed to take. Adam hadn't wanted to work for them, but he hadn't had any luck finding work at more prestigious agencies. Adam had a particular talent for being able to sense the sources that connected the specters to the waking world, which should have given him a significant edge, only the more prestigious agencies didn't even want to give him an interview, because he hadn't been through DEPRAC's standard training for agents. His father had never approved of Adam making use of his abilities - any mention whatsoever of what Adam could do had only ever set off Robert Parrish's temper - and after Adam had finally moved out of his parent's place into his own flat he hadn't had the money to spare on the training program. 

So Adam had felt stuck at Mountain View. He wasn't sure how long he would have stayed there, if one of his superiors hadn't called Adam into his office and said that one Robert Parrish had called to inquire what sort of compensation family members received if an agent was killed in action. His superior had asked Adam if Adam would like to list Robert Parrish as his next of kin. Adam didn't know how Robert Parrish had tracked down the agency Adam worked for but he did know that he would not ever be listing Robert Parrish as next of kin and he would not be working as an agent of Mountain View any longer. He'd resigned then and there, without any plan for what he'd do next.

When Adam had heard Monmouth Investigations was hiring, Adam had been dubious but he hadn't been able to pass up the chance. Monmouth Investigations had precisely two official agents when Adam first arranged his interview: Richard Campbell Gansey III, the founder of the agency, and Ronan Lynch. Both of their reputations preceded them.

Richard Campbell Gansey III was the son of the leading supplier of silver and the leading supplier of lavender in the country, an absurdly fortuitous pairing. Gansey was known as something of an outlier for choosing to branch off and start his own agency rather than planning to take over his family's distinguished one, and because it was rumored that a few years ago he had had a profound encounter with a specter yet he had remained unscathed. Adam hadn't put much stock in rumor.

Then there was Ronan Lynch. The Lynch family had gained notoriety for having some of the best protection against specters you could find. Unconventional things, things beyond standard iron or salt. Some people claimed anything the Lynches offered was worth more than gold because it could save your life. Other people thought Niall Lynch had been a snake oil salesman and any further items you could get from his eldest son was more of the same con. DEPRAC had never been able to conclusively investigate, but the scandal of the Lynch family had only escalated when Niall and Aurora Lynch had lost their lives in a messy car accident.

When Adam went for his interview, Gansey hadn't cared in the slightest about official training, he'd only wanted to know what Adam could do. He was flatteringly fascinated by Adam's talent, and the novelty of someone like Gansey seeing someone like Adam as a valuable member of his agency was so exhilarating to Adam that he accepted Gansey's offer of a position on the spot, even though he  _ knew  _ that Ronan didn't want him there.

Ronan worked very hard at trying to scare Adam off. Adam's first day on the job, Ronan tried to spook him by setting a specter on him inside the protected and warded factory Gansey had repurposed as an office and living quarters for himself and Ronan. That incident had been how Adam found out about Noah.

Because the specter hadn't been just another mindlessly ambushing spirit from the other side, it'd been Noah. Noah, who'd vanished when Adam had slashed out with the silver rapier that was the standard for agents to use against specters, and reappeared a little bit off to the left with both hands up in a placating gesture and a doleful look on his face.

"Not bad," Ronan had told Adam indifferently.

Gansey had some pointed words for Ronan and Gansey apologized profusely to Adam on Ronan's behalf. Then Gansey explained a little about how the rumors surrounding him had formed, and things began to make a little more sense.

A few years ago Gansey had been in the woods behind an old decrepit church attempting to do some of his own research on the Problem when a specter had surprised him and grabbed for him. Gansey had lost consciousness, and when he came to Noah had been sitting next to him with his knees pulled up to his chest, anxious and apologetic. Gansey had been no worse for wear.

Gansey and Noah had talked, and Gansey put together some theories on what had happened, though he still didn't truly understand it. Noah Czerny was the closest thing to a ghost Gansey had heard of in any of his research on specters.

Noah Czerny had worked for a small time agency and had also happened to be researching in the woods behind the church unofficially with a fellow agent Noah had thought of as a friend of his, Barrington Whelk. Whelk was always looking to learn more about the Problem, he was desperate to make a name for himself the way the founders of the biggest agencies had. There was a grove of trees in those woods that had an unusual amount of activity around it, and it seemed likely that this was a place where the divide between the Beyond and the waking world was thinnest. Somehow, circumstances aligned in strange unexpected ways and Whelk and Noah had managed to physically pass through into the Beyond. Noah wasn't sure what conditions had allowed them to do it, he said he couldn't remember and that was probably at least partially true. What mattered was, when the two of them were attacked by the creatures that lived in the Beyond as they tried to escape back into the waking world, Whelk struck Noah from behind so that he could seize his chance to escape while the creatures went after the easier of the two targets. Whelk made it back into the waking world with his body undamaged. Noah hadn't.

Noah had only managed to visit the waking world as a spirit, essentially as a specter himself. He needed a source, and Gansey happened to be in the vicinity. Gansey theorized that when Noah touched him somehow their energies combined, and somehow  _ he _ became Noah's source. Human beings weren't supposed to be able to be sources, but then, human beings weren't supposed to be specters. It was all unprecedented.

Ronan had been  _ furious  _ that Gansey had told Adam so much, and to be fair, Adam could see Ronan's point. It didn't bear thinking about, what some of the larger agencies would want to do with that sort of information if it got out. Gansey had unrepentantly maintained that it was Ronan's own actions that had made revealing the information necessary, and Adam sided with Gansey's point.

The first chance he'd had to speak to Ronan alone, Adam had told Ronan on no uncertain terms that he wasn't going anywhere because Ronan wanted to behave like a tool and more to the point, he would never give away Gansey or Noah's secrets. He'd worried he'd let his temper run away with him, somewhat, but Ronan had seemed to respect it.

Gradually, as enough time passed for Ronan to believe that what Adam had told him was true, Ronan grudgingly began to accept Adam's presence. Ronan was still obnoxious, though. He gave Adam a hard time about _everything_. From Adam's height - even though he was only slightly shorter than Ronan, who was unfairly tall, and he was taller than Gansey - to Adam's accent - which was no where near as pronounced as Ronan made it sound when he mimicked Adam like a particularly puerile grade schooler - to taking personal affront to the way that Adam tended to tap his pen when they were researching cases - as if Ronan Lynch had any right at all to cast judgments on anyone else's ability to _sit still_. 

The biggest change between the two of them started when Gansey hired another agent onto their team. Adam had thought that Ronan couldn't stand Adam's presence, but that was nothing in comparison to how Ronan took to Blue Sargent at first.

Blue Sargent was an unusual agent. She couldn't see specters at all. This wasn't unusual, many people couldn't see specters and many more could only just  _ barely  _ make out specter's forms, to the point that it hardly counted as seeing them at all. This was a large part of what made specters so dangerous. Blue was unusual because she could draw specters to her more strongly than anyone or anything there had ever been any research for. Specters were attracted to Blue's presence, but they couldn't ever seem to cross the final distance to touch her. It was as if Blue Sargent operated as both poles of a magnet at once.

Blue's ability was very useful for solving cases, in a sense. If there was a specter in the area it was better to know where it was than to have it sneak up on you. It could also, for obvious reasons, be rather dangerous for anyone who wasn't Blue. Gansey, having established himself as immune to the usual peril of having a specter touch you as a source himself, was the exception to this. So it was only logical once Blue began working with them that they tended to split up on their cases, with Blue and Gansey working together and Adam and Ronan working together.

Adam hadn't wanted it that way, originally, but it made too much sense for him to object. And once their new group dynamics had settled down, Adam was glad to have Ronan.

Adam had liked Blue right away when she came for her interview. Liked her as in he liked her as a person and also as in he would have liked to ask her out. Only he wasn't really the kind to just _ask someone out_ , and he didn't want to go asking her out when she'd only just started working with them, he figured he was better off waiting a bit so they could get to know each other. He waited, and he didn't have to wait very long at all to see that Blue and Gansey were obviously on their way to becoming a thing. Not that Blue or Gansey wanted to admit it, but Adam could tell they wouldn't be able to go on ignoring it. It was there in the way Blue looked at Gansey when he laughed, in the way Gansey always bought extra yogurt and was so undeniably pleased when Blue shared it with him, in the way that when Adam was occasionally tired enough to crash on the couch at Monmouth he would wake in the early hours of the morning to hear Blue and Gansey whispering to one another in soft voices from the other room. Adam tried, really truly tried, not to feel bitter about how anyone would obviously see Gansey as a far more preferable choice than him, because Adam wanted to be better than that sort of pettiness. But still. Sometimes when Blue and Gansey were being a lot, it was really good to have Ronan there, who would catch his eye and make a show of pretending to gag. It made Adam feel less alone in his shittiness. 

Unexpected as it was, the more they teamed up, the more Adam thought it was good to have Ronan there full stop. They worked remarkably well together in a fight, anticipating what the other would do. Relying on each other to watch the other's back. On long stakeouts for cases, they ended up talking about all sorts of things. Sometimes when Ronan was bored Adam would let Ronan talk him into stupid things, like setting flares off in cracks in the stone wall surrounding the abandoned mansion they were surveying just to see what would happen, or drawing elaborate tattoos on one another's arms in pen, which part of Adam felt like he should really be above, but must of Adam had fun with despite himself. Sometimes when Adam was really tired after a case Ronan would write up Adam's case report for him - without any cursing or other obscenities - and Adam was a little surprised by how touching he found the gesture. They got to know each other better, and they came to trust each other.

Enough for Adam to tell Ronan some of what he'd left behind him when he'd moved away from his parents. 

Enough for Ronan to tell Adam some of what it meant to be a Lynch. Ronan, like his father, had a connection to the Beyond even he didn't really understand. His father said that when they slept, their minds touched the Dreamscape. Ronan sometimes had nightmares of being attacked by the creatures from the Beyond, and sometimes if he wasn't careful he would wake with traces of blackness on his skin like he'd been touched by a specter that faded away slowly after he woke. It wasn't always like that though. Ronan said the Dreamscape was made up of energy, of unimaginable possibilities, and sometimes Ronan woke up with things like blue impossible looking flowers that would make a specter return quietly to the Beyond as soon as they smelled it, or a black twisting sphere of onyx-like metal that could freeze a specter entirely in place. It was something extraordinary to behold.

Ronan told Adam what he knew of what happened to his father. Colin Greenmantle ran a lucrative business discovering and selling new forms of protection from specters. The more he bought from Niall Lynch, the more convinced he was that Niall knew more about the Problem and the Beyond than he was willing to say. Colin Greenmantle wanted to acquire information on the Beyond the way that people wanted to acquire money: as a status symbol, because he understood that who held the information had the power. The more he pressed Niall for information, the less Niall wanted to sell to him. They'd fought for a while. Then, a few years ago, when Colin married Piper, the current head of the Laumonier Agency, Colin had contacted Niall to discuss reopening negotiations on behalf of the Laumonier Agency. Niall and Aurora had gone to meet with the Greenmantles, but it hadn't been a long meeting. Niall and Aurora left, and they hadn't made it home. There hadn't been a way to prove that the car crash they died in was a set up, but Ronan knew that it was. Adam was tempted to agree.

Just a few weeks ago, as the Laumonier's gala was approaching, Colin Greenmantle boasted that the world could expect very exciting things from the Laumonier Agency in the new year. Monmouth Investigations had been extended an invitation to the gala, all the agencies were, no matter how small, as a matter of principle. Ronan wanted to attend, to do some prowling, to find out what the Greenmantles were working on that had them so pleased. It couldn't be anything good. Adam knew Ronan would do it with or without any of their help, and Adam wanted to be there, to keep Ronan from sticking his neck out too far. Adam convinced Gansey and Blue it was a good idea, that he and Ronan would investigate and Gansey and Blue should stick to the party and keep their eyes open, keep tabs on the other guests and divert suspicion and run interference as best they could.

And so now it was time for them to all follow the plan.

Adam supposed - not that he would admit this aloud - that if he weren’t using this party as means of subterfuge at Ronan's behest, this party would be excruciating. At the least, it'd be boring. 

It was an odd sort of silver lining, that he wouldn't have to play nice with the members of the other agencies because he was skulking around the bowels of the Laumonier Agency where guests weren't meant to go.

“We’re just gathering intel, Lynch," Adam reminded Ronan in a low voice. "Right now we're just seeing what we can learn; deciding the best thing to do about what we learn comes later. It’s better to wait to make our move than to blow it all because we were sloppy.”

Ronan gave him a sharp edged grin. “You don’t trust me to stick to the plan, Parrish? Then maybe we shouldn’t split up.”

"We don't have a whole lot of time, we'll cover more ground if we search separately. Besides, if anyone spots us it'll be easier to make an excuse if we're by ourselves. It's less believable that we just happened to take a wrong turn if there's two of us."

"Depends what excuse we're trying to make," Ronan told him, eyebrows arched, still defiant.

Adam didn't give him the satisfaction of responding. "We gather what information we can without getting caught. We meet back up with Gansey and Blue by midnight the latest."

Ronan rolled his eyes but gave a sarcastic sort of salute before walking off down the corridor. Adam headed the other direction.

Adam looked for hallways that were less well lit, for out of the way stairs. Anything worth finding wouldn't be in any of the main areas of the agency.

Adam figured he had to be close to finding something when Noah appeared beside him, looking anxious and even more eerie than usual.

"It's not going to be anything good," Noah whispered grimly. "And it's not going to be defenseless."

"Do you already know what we're looking for, Noah?"

This wasn't quite the right question, because Noah had a way of always seeming to know. It was more a question of how much Noah thought he should share.

Noah only said, "You shouldn't keep going alone."

Adam frowned a little. "We can't afford to wait around, anyone at the party could get suspicious. If there's something here to find I'm going to see what it is."

From behind the iron door Adam stood in front of there emanated a deep sense of cold. It was more than just temperature, it was a discomfiting bone-deep sensation that spread like a chill through the inside of you. The door had a substantial looking iron lock. Adam pulled the skeleton key out of his pocket - the one that Ronan had claimed worked better the more seriously the lock was meant to keep someone out, when he'd given it to Adam - and turned to glance back at Noah to see if Noah had any other advice. Noah was already gone.

Adam drew in a breath and turned the key. The door unlocked effortlessly. Beyond it was more dark corridor that led down to a narrow austere set of stairs.

When Adam got to the bottom, Ronan was there.

His eyes were vivid blue in the low light, his long lashes casting shadow over his sharp cheekbones. "You came down here all by yourself for me? Adam, it's dangerous, why would you risk it? You should get out of here."

"You're down here," Adam returned simply.

This made Ronan consider him, with more direct attention than Ronan usually allowed himself to give to Adam. Ronan shook his head. "You know I don't really care what happens to me. You know I'm running headlong into this half hoping something bad will happen, right? It'd be almost fitting. That doesn't mean I want that for you. I don't want you getting dragged down with me. You're smarter than that, Adam."

"You asked me for my help, Lynch, neither of us is going to go in there and intentionally put ourselves in jeopardy," Adam told him, sharper than he would have if he weren't on edge already. There was more to say but it wasn't the time. What mattered was, "I'm not leaving you alone."

The look on Ronan's face was the kind of defiance that was bluster to cover hesitation. "It's a lot to ask, Adam. I may have asked for your help, but why did you say yes?"

Adam swallowed. He thought of the late nights of Ronan distracting him from research with obscene jokes, of close calls where the only reason one wasn't touched by a specter was because the other one wrenched them back by the back of the shirt, of sitting across from each other at Nino's in companionable silence because it was open at 3:45 am and they were craving pizza and garlic knots after finishing a case. Ronan had to know he wouldn't say no? Before he'd formulated any of those thoughts into words, Ronan's sharp gaze took him in with a burgeoning  _ knowing  _ sort of look.

Ronan said, "Then we'll leave together," and he held out his hand to Adam.

It surprised Adam a little, how appealing some part of him found the idea of taking Ronan's hand, despite himself. It wasn't the sort of urge he generally allowed himself to give in to, even if this particular scenario unfolding now hadn't started suspicion creeping through him the longer the conversation went on. He pulled his own hand back, just a little.

It was just a slight shift, but it sent Ronan into a fury of motion. All at once Ronan's eyes had gone wide and void and soullessly white, and he was launching himself at Adam, his hands grasping for Adam's throat.

Adam's body moved on instinct before his mind had fully processed what was happening, scrambling backwards as far as he could get, until his back hit the cold hard wall. The thing that looked like Ronan was still rushing towards him, too fast for Adam to get his rapier out of the asinine ceremonial sheath Gansey had loaned him for this asinine party. Adam had a dull airless moment where all he could think was that he was going to be touched by this specter and that would be it, that would be the end, and it would all be because he was an _imbecile_ , and then the specter let out an inhuman shriek. Adam just had time to catch sight of the tip of a rapier jutting from the false Ronan's chest before the specter subsided like candle flame that had been snuffed out. There stood Ronan, rapier in hand and something bright in his eyes like anger.

"Get the source!" Ronan snarled, as the specter already started to reform, massing into a hazy gray billow of vapor that was just as dangerous to touch as a corporeal form but harder to fight off.

Adam forced himself to concentrate through the pounding of his pulse and held out his hands, sensing for what connected the specter to the world. His thoughts were an anxious tangle of  _ too slow this is taking too long  _ as he could hear Ronan keeping the specter at bay with his rapier, but finally finally he sensed a telling sort of warmth from behind one of the bricks in the wall. When he pulled it out it was hollow, and inside was a bit of branch with symbols carved into it. Adam didn't waste time, he wrapped the whole brick in silver netting and shoved it all into one of the iron containment cases in his supply bag.

Adam only felt like he could really breath again when Ronan let his sword arm lower and turned to face him, unharmed and still looking like he wasn't done fighting.

"What was that, Parrish?" 

Adam heard the accusation of _that wasn't like you_ , and he knew Ronan wasn't wrong, but now wasn't the time to get into that, so he said, "They had good defenses. Let's see what they wanted to keep guarded."

Ronan gave him a pointed look but ultimately nodded, and they opened the next set of heavy iron doors together.

Inside was a vast cavernous room largely dominated by a gave-looking square stone pool. Beside the pool was an ominous looking contraption of a chair where a man sat bound. The man's face was sunken and ashen, the mouth twisted in something of a grimace but there was a faintly disturbing sort of slackness to the expression, as he struggled to pull in rattling breaths, as if he no longer had the awareness that it took for true gestures of pain. One of the worst parts was that his eyes were partially open, nightmarish and dull and unseeing. Tubes and wiring and other sinister instruments connected the man to the pool of water.

"What do you think they're taking from him?" Adam asked lowly.

"Nothing anyone would give willingly," Ronan answered, his jaw tense as he moved cautiously closer to the edge of the pool.

Adam approached the man in the chair equally cautiously. "What are Piper and Colin Greenmantle trying to do, and why do they need this man to do it?"

From behind him Noah's voice said, "That's Barrington Whelk."

Noah spoke so quietly Adam wasn't really sure if Noah had spoken until he turned and saw the wounded expression on Noah's face.

"He's one of the  _ only _ people who was able to physically enter the Beyond and who managed to physically come back, and even then he just barely made it out alive," Noah said, his shadowed eyes turned in Whelk's direction but not quite looking at Whelk. "The Greenmantles must have found out. He probably wanted them to back him in his research, that's all he used to talk about, making a name for himself with one of the big companies."

"The Greenmantles want to replicate what Whelk did for themselves," Adam said, the pieces sliding into sickening place as Ronan's sharp gaze slid from Noah to meet Adam's own. "They want a viable, sustainable way to go back and forth between our world and the Beyond. And this must be part of how they've started to bridge the two. I think being on the other side so long must have had some effect on Whelk, he must have some sort of residual link to the Beyond that the Greenmantles are looking to use. I doubt they'd leave this set up here and risk being exposed if they hadn't had some success making a connection to the other side. But the fact that they haven't gone public with any sort of new research or artifacts from the Beyond seems like a pretty good indication that they aren't at the stage where they feel secure enough that they can go ahead with crossing over. They probably haven't worked out a safe exit strategy to be sure they can get back once they've crossed."

"I knew if anyone could work this out it'd be you, brainiac," Ronan said, with an imperious sort of arch of his eyebrow. "What do we do?"

"Whatever it is you have to do it fast," Noah said, distress suddenly lending him more urgency. "The Greenmantles know something's wrong and they're on their way with their guards. They've killed for this. They'll do anything they have to to try to get what they want, you need to  _go_." 

Ronan gritted his teeth. "We're not just going to run away and let the Greenmantles keep getting away with this. We have to _do something_." He looked to Adam. "Parrish?"

Adam frowned, his hands restlessly going to his supply bag. "I don't know if - it's too risky -"

"Too late for those kinds of worries now, Parrish. You can think of something, I know you can. Don't second guess yourself just tell me what we're gonna do."

"To exit the Beyond you'd need to come out at a place where the veil between worlds is thinnest. We have access to that already, right? At the Barns. That's why your father built your home where it is. But we'd still need to try to make crossing safer for us. If we're attacked before we can manage to get out we're better off taking our chances staying here."

"My dad used to tell me...if you hide your face with their own essence, the things from the other side will pass you by." Ronan reached into his bag and pulled out a jar, dark and featureless.

"What's in that?" Adam asked.

"Blood from something over there you don't wanna meet. I call them night horrors," Ronan told him, scowling down at the jar warily as if hot oil might burst up out of it. "I think this will help. But how is this different than very high-risk running away?"

It would only sound that much worse putting his plan into words, but they didn't have the time for him to be delicate about it. "These machines? They're all that keep Whelk alive, and they're all that keep the connection to the Beyond strong enough to use. I can sense it. If we cut that off… there's enough energy that we'll have a little time to cross over but without Whelk, soon no one will be able to use it. And I think...the odds are good that if Piper and Colin Greenmantle get here and see that their connection to the Beyond has been compromised and that someone  _ else _ has gone in, they might be impulsive enough to follow. Considering how much they put on the line to get this far, and with what we know about the two of them, I think it's worth a shot. If we get back from the other side and the Greenmantles can't…the Beyond will have taken care of things for itself and we won't have to worry about what the Greenmantles might be able to do with what they're experimenting with here."

"It's bad over there," Noah whispered. "Things from the Beyond, they're made up of the energy from the other side, and when they touch anything on this side it messes with whatever they touch on a physical level. It starts breaking down. But when you go _there_ ," Noah touched his fingertips to his own chest faintly. "That starts happening on the inside of you. ...you know what happens if you can't make it out."

"We have a way out," Adam said quietly. "And we have someone who can lead us through the Beyond so we get where we want to go quickly."

Noah's lips curved up a little in a rueful sort of acknowledgment. He probably had hoped they wouldn't ask, because he didn't want to be responsible if something went wrong, but Noah was nothing if not loyal, so he didn't object.

"Would you let Gansey know we're ditching the party early and meet us on the other side, Noah?" Ronan asked, like the idea of what they were about to do didn't trouble him at all.

Adam knew that wasn't true, but he appreciated Ronan's surety.

Noah nodded, and departed with only a soft, "Stay together."

Adam and Ronan exchanged looks, a last check if they were both sure they wanted to do this. Silently they pulled switchblades from their supply bags and together they set about swiftly cutting and unplugging and dismantling everything that tethered Whelk to the pool.

Then they spread the black blood from Ronan's jar over one another's faces to be sure their faces were fully covered. It was an unexpected moment in the midst of what they were about to do, and Adam's already quick heartbeat tripped a little as Ronan's warm fingertips swept surprisingly carefully down the bridge of his nose, as his own fingers traced the sharp curve of Ronan's cheek.

They startled apart a little when they heard footsteps coming down the corridor. They were out of time.

"I'll go first," Ronan said. "If anything goes really wrong, you stay back and talk your way out of this."

"Fuck that," Adam told him. "Go! I'll be right behind you."

Ronan gave him a thin sharp-edged grin and walked into the water. The pool looked shallow to the eye but Ronan was swallowed beneath the surface like he'd stepped into an ocean trench.

The footsteps were getting closer and Adam could hear Piper Greenmantle's voice. He couldn't make out the words but her tone was commanding. Adam followed after Ronan into the water.

The first step was a shock like he'd tried to walk through a thundercloud. Everything was slipping away from him and he felt like his skin was being flayed raw, nerve endings charged and overloaded and close to breaking. When he finally felt like he'd gotten something of a hold of himself again, the only thing he was really aware of was the gloom.

It was hard to see, and he kept blinking, uneasily unsure if it was because of his surroundings or if it was a failure of his own sense of vision. It was hard to breathe, too, the air either too hot or too cold, it was hard to tell which, he just knew it burned against his throat and stung at his skin. It wasn't unbearable though; some part of him believed it had to be letting up, that if he just rubbed his eyes or cleared his throat or shook his head he could throw the sensation off. 

He only realized how deceptive this belief was when Ronan shouted, "Parrish! We gotta move!" and he realized he'd just been standing there, static.

If he tried he could make out Ronan's form, the blue of his eyes and the inky blur that made up the contours of Ronan's face. He reached for Ronan, and Ronan reached back, and they grasped at wrists and palms until they got a good grip on each other's hand.

Noah's voice called, cutting through the dimness, "This way! Keep moving!" 

Noah in front of them was more vibrant than Adam had ever seen him, eyes clear and his features distinct as he led them onwards.

As they stumbled forward, Adam became aware of the sound of beating wings and the high call of birds of prey growing closer.

"The creatures here are getting restless, you aren't the only outsiders here. The Greenmantles must have come after you," Noah said, his eyes on a far off point in the distance.

Ronan pitched his head back and Adam could feel more than see the tension running through Ronan as he watched the monstrous form of the night horrors approaching. Adam clasped his hand tighter and concentrated. It was hard to think here, too many thoughts and none of them coherent enough to follow. But there was so much  _ potential  _ here, Adam could sense it. The possibilities here were so different from the reality that Adam knew that trying to understand everything he could sense around him was a little like trying to make sense of a polaroid that had been overexposed and only partially developed. Still, Adam persevered, he had to be able to do something to help. He focused, and from between their interwoven fingers grew fresh sprigs of lavender. 

Above them, the night horrors veered higher, away from them, and continued on into the distance. Adam felt some of Ronan's tension drain away and his own shoulders slumped a little with the relief of it too.

"Keep going!" Noah called to them. "It's only a little farther!"

Time and distance didn't seem to mean much here, but they trudged on. Somewhere behind them, the calls of the night horrors grew louder, prey animals moving in to attack. Then there were low keening wails Adam recognized as Colin Greenmantle's, and angry defiant shouts Adam recognized as Piper's.

"Don't look back," Noah told them. "Keep going, we're almost there."

They kept going, and the cries behind them were bad but the silence that fell after was almost worse. They weren't good people, and Adam didn't have the energy to spare for them, but that silence still left him with a hollowness somewhere in his chest.

His vision was getting worse, or everything was getting darker, and soon Adam could see so little that he shut his eyes, centering himself on the solidness of Ronan's hand in his, and the sound of Noah's voice saying "we're close, we're close," and one more step, one more breath.

When they finally found their way out, there was no warning or way of knowing it was coming. They kept walking, as Noah kept urging them onwards, and then suddenly they were crashing into their own realm of existence in a harrowing, shattering, thrashing sort of experience like they'd been tossed into rough ocean waves and pounded into the shore. 

They emerged in a rocky river which some obscure part of Adam recognized as being part of the Barns, and together they dragged and heaved themselves onto solid ground. They lay in the grass, panting, taking in all the oxygen they could, they'd never have enough, their fingers still entangled.

Eventually, Ronan muttered, "well that was a fucking trip," and sat up, running the hand that had been in Adam's down his own face. He looked down at Adam, who couldn't quite be bothered to move yet. Ronan's face was still smeared with the night horror's blood, and Adam knew his must be too, but he doubted it suited him so well as Ronan. Ronan, though exhausted, looked honed-down to the most vital version of himself, dangerous and alluring and so alive. They'd both made it out, and god, it was so good to be alive.

When Adam only continued looking back at him, Ronan stood and looked away. "You can use the shower in Declan's room and I'll find you something warm to change into."

It was cold, now that Adam thought about it, so he hauled himself up and got into the shower. He let himself stand under the warm water and not think, because there would be a lot of things they’d have to deal with soon enough. 

When he got out, he put on the clothes Ronan had set out for him, which were a little baggy but he didn’t care because they were comfortable and they smelled good. He really wanted to sleep, but he wanted to talk to Ronan first.

He found Ronan manning the furnaces in the small stone outbuilding off the main house. When Adam entered, Ronan turned to face him, but didn’t speak. Adam looked back at him, but didn’t speak either. Before either of them were willing to break the silence, Ronan’s phone rang, which was something of a relief.

Ronan sighed, but he checked the screen and actually accepted the call. "Hey Gansey. We miss anything exciting at the party?"

Gansey's voice, tinny over the speaker but still carrying that refined tension that meant he was trying to hide how anxious he truly was, said, "I wanted to make sure you both were all right."

"We're both fine," Adam said, before Ronan could say something sarcastic, because Ronan tended to have a difficult time being faced with direct concern. "Are you and Blue okay?"

"We're doing better than you two I'm sure," Blue's voice answered. "And I have the feeling we're all doing a lot better than Piper and Colin Greenmantle. They're missing. Their guards reported it and we were all evacuated from the premises and DEPRAC's investigating. You two wouldn't happen to know anything about it, would you?"

"That's gotta be a hypothetical question, right, maggot?" Ronan scoffed.

"So long as you're both safe," Gansey said wearily. "We can discuss things after the holidays and try to make some sense out of it all. Take care of yourselves."

They said their goodbyes and then Adam and Ronan were left in the same silence they'd been caught in before.

He knew there were things he and Ronan should talk about, but it felt too precarious to try to take a first step. He was almost about to suggest they both get some sleep when Ronan said, "I destroyed the source."

It took Adam a moment to realize Ronan meant the source the Greenmantles had used to guard their experiments, the one that had taken Ronan's form; right, that would explain why they were out here in the first place Adam thought to himself sluggishly. "I nearly forgot," Adam said, his tiredness making him artless.

"I didn't," Ronan returned tersely. "That thing could have killed you. If Noah hadn't warned me it probably would have."

"I'm lucky I had you for backup," Adam said quietly.

Ronan still looked dissatisfied. "It shouldn't have been an issue, Parrish. Since when do you fall for that kind of thing?"

"I shouldn't have, but I did." Adam rubbed a thumb across his own fingertips, remembering the false Ronan offering Adam his hand, remembering how fiercely he'd wanted the real Ronan to keep holding on as they'd walked through the other side, how Ronan hadn't let go. He shook his head and said, a little lamely, "I'll try to be more careful. I don't know what else you want from me, Lynch."

Ronan let out a frustrated sound between his teeth and threw open the doors to the outbuilding, walking out into the night.

Adam knew Ronan well enough that he wasn't going to let this phase him. He followed a few paces behind Ronan. "Are you done?" he asked, because Ronan didn't seem like he would come around to expressing what was really going on with him without being pushed a little.

Ronan turned to face him and his expression was harsh, close to angry, but his eyes were unbearably guarded. "I recognized the markings on the branch. It was to summon and bind a creature from the other side that feeds off a human psyche. Those creatures are nasty. They're manipulative. That's why the Geenmantles used them, because they can make good lines of defense when they can get in your head and they know how to play you. In the normal run of things, they don't want their prey putting up a fight so they try to draw you in by using whatever good things they can find in your head to distract you with. They get you to do what they want by doing whatever they can to lull you into a false sense of security, try to trick you into believing whatever keeps you pacified. Tell me why that thing would choose to look like me."

But Adam thought Ronan already had to know. Wasn't that the whole point?

So he swallowed. Met Ronan's eyes. Took a breath. 

"I know there are some things we don't really talk about, because...because I'm me and you're you." He shrugged a shoulder helplessly. "But if there's anything good in my head for something like that to find, of course it's you."

For an endless heartbeat Ronan just looked at him. Adam didn't look away.

And then Ronan moved toward him, closer, closer, and pulled Adam into a kiss.

It was a slow brush of lips at first, more careful than Adam would usually associate with Ronan. Uncertain but hungry. Or maybe that was just Adam.

He fit a hand along Ronan's jaw, the other along the back of Ronan's neck, and Ronan's hands fisted in his hair, and the kiss grew deeper, more sure. Adam pressed forward, tongue slipping along Ronan's lower lip and whole body shivering at the heat of Ronan's mouth as Ronan let him in. Adam got lost in it, in the rush of _waking up_ that lit through him in the wake of every touch, of the scratch of Ronan's nails so good along Adam's scalp, of the sound Ronan made when Adam brushed his lips down Ronan's throat and nipped at Ronan's collarbone, of ribs and stomachs and hips pressed so close together, of wanting more more more.

When they pulled apart to get their breath back sometime later Adam finally said, "we should get inside."

"Yeah," Ronan said, voice still a little breathless. Then, "You should stay through Christmas."

Adam blinked. "Aren't your brothers coming home?"

"Yeah. Matthew  _ loves _ company. And Declan will probably be pissy about it, so. Win-win." Ronan shrugged a shoulder like it didn't really matter but when Adam's brow furrowed in doubt Ronan reached out with a thumb to smooth it away. "Don't. Just...just stay."

When Ronan dropped his hand from Adam's forehead, Adam took it and slid their fingers together. Later they would deal with things as they came, but for now, maybe things could be this simple. He said, "Okay."

Inside, they never made it up to their respective rooms. They kissed on the sofa until they were too tired and they fell asleep tangled together like that.

In the morning when they woke up, they didn't move right away. They laid still, breathing in sync, neither one willing to break the quiet. Adam would have thought that by now he'd be feeling uneasy about being in someone else's space so long, that now that he'd gotten some rest he'd come to his senses and consider how he was overstaying his welcome, that he'd remember how he ought to be getting back to his own place where it was cold and sparse and lonesome but it was _his_. He was a little surprised to find when he searched inside himself that he felt none of that. Instead what he felt was contentment, and more than that, a sense of connection that he couldn't bear to think about breaking. He could hear Ronan's heartbeat where he rested his head on Ronan's chest, he could feel the warmth of Ronan's hands where they were settled along his spine, he could remember the taste of Ronan's mouth on his. Adam didn't wonder what was between them any longer, didn't have to guess. He _knew_. Ronan wanted him here, and this was where he wanted to be.

Adam stayed.

**Author's Note:**

> magicienetreveur I hope you like this! Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays!


End file.
